Theories About Real Estate, Money and Hipness

Cheap rents attract young people. Young people create demand for bars and restaurants. Bar and restaurants make neighborhoods safe and appealing. Safe and appealing neighborhoods are no longer cheap. Original gentrifiers complain the area isn’t what it was.

Williamsburg and Dumbo followed this cycle. But on closer inspection, cheap rents don’t always turn neighborhoods into epicenters of cool. Turns out poor people are more discriminating.

Take the Upper East Side: Close to the Met, Central Park and your general practitioner. My brother just rented a largish studio there for less than what a friend of mine was paying in the East Village. While the Upper East Side is one of the most expensive neighborhoods for families in the city, proximity to Dalton isn’t exactly a selling point for young people. The concentration of wealthy families is a turn off for young people renting small apartments. Until studios in Greenpoint start going for $2000 a month, I can’t see many people taking advantage of this real estate loophole. Who wants to live around people who wear real fur?

And why hasn’t Astoria, with its tasty ethnic food, easy access to Manhattan and low rents, become the new hot thing? Well, before parts of Brooklyn became social destinations themselves, their trains offered fast service to hip areas of Manhattan. The first Manhattan stop from Astoria is the basement of Bloomingdale’s, and if you’re living in Queens, you probably don’t have a preferred membership card there. Astoria’s distance from downtown Manhattan creates a Catch-22. A lot of people won’t live there because it’s far from hip areas of Manhattan. And without an abundance of young people, the neighborhood can’t grow into the kind of neighborhood that attracts young people. For the time being, Astoria is stuck.

That said, the Beer Garden is pretty sweet.

Tomorrow’s Trend Stories Today …

∙ How did NBC become the most trusted news network for suicide mass-murderers?
∙ After Monday’s events, Virginia Tech gear becomes the new American flag pin.
∙ Like after 9/11, where international sympathy for America peaks while tourism falls, Hookie support grows as Virginia Tech’s matriculation rate drops.

Is New York Overcompensating for Something?

New York City has been giving out free subway-themed condoms since February. Protecting against STDs and unwanted pregnancy is great and everything, but let’s keep it real: this whole thing is a PR stunt. With a few million prophylactics, the city government is saying to the world, “Come to New York. We have sex here.” Apparently that has more appeal than a 24-hour subway system.

Maybe if these had come out earlier, we would have gotten the Olympics.

From Your Weekly Circular, Meaning

Here’s a question: If you could, would you be a Sears catalogue model? You’re not at the height of your profession, other models look down on you and you may never star in or even appear on a reality TV show. But still, you’re better than average looking and you make a decent living.

Chances are, you’ve already answered that question with your own job. Even if Sears catalogue models dream of walking the runway in Paris and being a special guest judge on America’s Next Top Model, they’re still pursuing something. And nearly everyone I know is doing the same. For now, living the dream has us metaphorically posing in discount thermals instead of vomiting up champagne and caviar around the world. Sears catalogue models, I don’t judge you. I am you.

Where Are They Now?

Today is high school reunion Thursday as I’m having a lunch and dinner date with two old friends from NRHS. I wonder what these friends have been up to. Where are they living? What do they do? Have they gone on any vacations recently?

Except I don’t wonder this. Facebook has done all the wondering for me. There’s no need to catch up—I’ve already read their newsfeeds, seen their pictures and made inferences about their wall postings. So today at lunch and later at dinner, these friends and I will have to discover whatever new things about each other that weren’t reported online. Eak!

Facebook has done for old friends what VH1 has done for B-list celebrities. Those who want to be discovered and remembered put themselves, and all their personal information, out there. There’s no need for a big high school reunion or a Where Are They Now special. I already know where everybody is. The Susan Olsens of the world aren’t online. And like Cindy Brad, those people seem gone forever.

Changes to the East?

I live in area of Prospect Heights my dad tactfully refers to as “a changing neighborhood.” Parts of Prospects Heights have already changed. West of Washington Avenue, the neighborhood is teeming with restaurants, coffee shops and quality produce available for purchase, but east of Washington Avenue, I seem to be the only person trying to gentrify the area. In the stretch of Washington Avenue near my apartment, the street itself is divided. On the west side, there’s Tom’s Diner, Café Shane and a good C-Town. On the east side, there are just sketchy Chinese places and a grocery store that might as well be a bodega, except the hours are worse. I think the problem lies in Washington Avenue itself. The street goes through Fort Greene, Clinton Hill and Prospect Heights. But instead of acting like Smith Street, which creates continuity through Carroll Gardens, Cobble Hill and Boerum Hill, Washington Avenue is an east-west border in the neighborhoods it passes through. Based on The Death and Life of Great American Cities, the problem seems to be that the lights on the street too strongly favor cars traveling north-south, which discourages east-west foot traffic and ultimately splits up the neighborhoods.

But east of Washington Avenue, things are happening. My window overlooks the construction of two new large apartment buildings. Once they’re up, I wonder how the neighborhood will develop. If the city changes the light patterns on Washington Avenue, in a few years I’ll be able to annoy people with stories about living in Prospect Heights before it was anything. Until then, I’ll continue to enjoy squashing the packets of duck sauce I find littered along the east side of the street.

Related article: Sometimes I Feel Like I’m The Only One Trying To Gentrify This Neighborhood [The Onion]

Think About It …

Americans are boring because we don’t have universal health care. There are a lot of things I’d like to be doing right now: traveling, running marathons, writing novels, but none of those occupations provide health care. Doing your own thing means finding your own insurance, which is crazy expensive. The need for health care forces us either to take a 9 to 5 job or work 40 hours a week at Starbucks. And that’s why Europeans, with their free health care, are so much more interesting than Americans.

Note: this theory does not explain the universal dullness and healthcare system found in Canada.

Hell of a Town

In the suburbs, when you see a dog on the street, the dog says hello. People say New Yorkers are rude, but I think that only applies to the dogs. New York dogs are unfriendly; they don’t say hi to anyone. In NYC, the dogs see too many people to greet anyone. They’ve got places to go.